“I want to send a newsletter to my customers”
Can I send a newsletter to people who have bought from me
Answer
Yes, but
Yes, if you hold the recipient's prior demonstrable consent obtained before you first approached them. § 116(15) and (16) of Act 452/2021 Coll. do contain an exception for customers, but § 4(6) of Act 22/2004 Coll. prohibits delivering commercial communication by electronic mail unless the recipient requested it in advance, and it has no such exception.
Allowed only if you meet the conditions; miss one and it becomes unlawful.
Most disputes about email marketing do not begin with the content of the newsletter, but with the question of what you can produce to show that the recipient allowed you to write to them. Act 452/2021 Coll. on electronic communications does not treat 'unsubscribing' or an 'opt-out' as the condition; it speaks of consent that has to exist before you send the first message.
Businesses commonly repeat that an existing customer may be written to even without separate consent. Act 452/2021 Coll. does contain such an exception: under § 116(15), consent is not required for direct marketing of your own similar goods and services where you yourself obtained the customer's contact details in connection with the sale of goods or services in accordance with the law; the customer must, however, be given the option to refuse such use simply and free of charge when the details are collected and then in every message. Under § 116(16), contact details obtained in this way may be used for one year from the end of the contractual relationship. Act 22/2004 Coll. on electronic commerce, however, prohibits in § 4(6) delivering commercial communication by electronic mail unless the recipient requested it in advance, and it has no exception for customers; the Slovak Trade Inspection may impose a fine for a breach under § 7a(1). How the two provisions relate to each other does not follow from their wording, so this page does not rely on the exception.
The conditions the answer rests on
- 01
Consent has to precede the first approach
§ 116(3) speaks of prior demonstrable consent obtained before the subscriber or user is contacted. Consent requested in the first message itself does not meet the condition, because that first message is already the approach.
- 02
Consent has to be demonstrable and retained
Under § 116(5), a durable medium with the recorded consent is kept for at least four years from its withdrawal. In practice this means being able to show, for every address, when and by what act the consent arose.
- 03
When obtaining consent you have to say how it can be withdrawn
The same duty sits in the second sentence of § 116(5): when obtaining consent you have to state how it can be simply withdrawn. An unsubscribe link in the newsletter is therefore not enough on its own, the information belongs with the sign-up form.
- 04
Withdrawal is confirmed within 30 days
Where someone withdraws consent, § 116(6) requires the withdrawal to be confirmed within 30 days and the confirmation kept for four years. Unsubscribing is therefore not just deleting a row from a mailing list.
Where we will not answer for you
The exception for an existing customer is in § 116(15) and (16) of Act 452/2021 Coll.; the ban in § 4(6) of Act 22/2004 Coll. does not have it. How the two provisions relate to each other does not follow from their wording. This page therefore does not say that the exception is enough, nor that it is not; it says what both provisions contain. If your company's marketing rests precisely on being allowed to write to customers without separate consent, that is a question for a lawyer, not for a tool.
How to do it in practice
Collect consent where the customer already is
The order form, the checkout or a booking confirmation are places where consent can be obtained before the first approach and where the moment it arose can be recorded. It is the only way to satisfy the prior consent condition without having to write to anyone.
Separate marketing consent from acceptance of the terms and conditions
A single tick box covering both cannot later be produced as marketing consent, because it is not clear from it what the person agreed to. Two boxes are the same amount of administrative work, and in a dispute they are the difference between evidenced and unevidenced.
Reach people where they ask for the content themselves
A blog, search and referrals are not direct marketing under § 116(2), because they are not sent directly to a single subscriber. When a reader then enters their email themselves, consent arises before the approach and the condition is met.
What the statute says
Wording taken from the official register. Every excerpt is machine-compared against the statutes in our database, so it cannot drift from what the law actually says.
Priamym marketingom na účely tohto zákona sa rozumie akákoľvek forma prezentácie tovarov alebo služieb v písomnej forme alebo ústnej forme, zaslaná alebo prezentovaná prostredníctvom verejne dostupnej služby priamo jednému alebo viacerým účastníkom alebo užívateľom, vrátane získavania informácií o tovaroch a službách od účastníka alebo užívateľa.Na účely priameho marketingu je dovolené používanie automatických volacích a komunikačných systémov bez ľudského zásahu, telefaxu, elektronickej pošty, služby SMS a služby MMS voči účastníkovi alebo užívateľovi len s jeho predchádzajúcim preukázateľným súhlasom získaným pred kontaktovaním účastníka alebo užívateľa.Za preukázateľný súhlas na účely tohto zákona podľa odseku 3 sa považuje súhlas spĺňajúci náležitosti podľa osobitného predpisu; osoba, ktorej bol takýto súhlas udelený, je povinná uchovávať trvanlivé médium, na ktorom je zaznamenaný preukázateľný súhlas účastníka alebo užívateľa, po dobu najmenej štyroch rokov od odvolania súhlasu účastníkom alebo užívateľom podľa odseku 6. Osoba vykonávajúca priamy marketing je pri získavaní súhlasu účastníka alebo užívateľa povinná uviesť údaj o spôsobe, akým je možné súhlas jednoducho odvolať.Účastník alebo užívateľ môže kedykoľvek predchádzajúci súhlas odvolať alebo namietnuť volanie za účelom priameho marketingu. Osoba, voči ktorej bol takýto súhlas odvolaný alebo voči ktorej bolo namietané volanie, je povinná účastníkovi alebo užívateľovi preukázateľne potvrdiť odvolanie takéhoto súhlasu alebo prijatie námietky volania najneskôr do 30 dní odo dňa odvolania súhlasu alebo prijatia námietky volaniaPredchádzajúci súhlas príjemcu elektronickej pošty, služby SMS alebo služby MMS podľa odseku 3 sa nevyžaduje, ak ide o priamy marketing vlastných podobných tovarov a služieb osoby, a ak jeho kontaktné údaje na doručenie elektronickej pošty, služby SMS alebo služby MMS tá istá osoba získala v súvislosti s predajom tovaru alebo služieb v súlade s týmto zákonom alebo s osobitným predpisom, alebo ak ide o priamy marketing adresovaný na zverejnené kontaktné údaje účastníka alebo užívateľa, ktorý je fyzickou osobou podnikateľom alebo právnickou osobou. Príjemcovi elektronickej pošty, služby SMS alebo služby MMS sa musí poskytnúť možnosť jednoducho a bezplatne kedykoľvek odmietnuť také používanie kontaktných údajov v čase ich získavania a pri každej doručenej správe ak také použitie predtým neodmietol.Kontaktné údaje účastníka alebo užívateľa získané v súvislosti s predajom tovarov alebo služieb možno použiť podľa odsekov 14 a 15 po dobu jedného roku od ukončenia zmluvného vzťahu.Poskytovateľ služieb nesmie doručovať informácie komerčnej komunikácie elektronickou poštou, ak si ich príjemca služby vopred nevyžiadal.Slovenská obchodná inšpekcia môže uložiť za porušenie povinnosti podľa tohto zákona poskytovateľovi služieb pokutu vo výške od 50 eur do 1 % jeho obratu za predchádzajúce účtovné obdobie, najviac 50 000 eur.Frequently asked questions
Is an unsubscribe link in the newsletter enough?
No. An unsubscribe link deals with withdrawing consent, not with how it arises. § 116(3) requires consent obtained before the approach, so a link in the first message comes too late.
A customer bought from me a year ago, can I write to them?
With their prior demonstrable consent, yes. Without it you would be relying on the exception in § 116(15) of Act 452/2021 Coll., which covers only your own similar goods and services; the customer must be given the option to refuse such use of the contact details when they are collected and then in every message, and under § 116(16) of Act 452/2021 Coll. the details may be used in this way for no longer than one year from the end of the contractual relationship. § 4(6) of Act 22/2004 Coll., however, prohibits commercial communication by email that the recipient did not request in advance and has no such exception, so have that route assessed by a lawyer.
How long do I have to keep the consent?
Under § 116(5), at least four years from the withdrawal of consent, not from the day it was given. While the consent lasts, the period has not started to run.
Does this apply to SMS as well?
Yes. § 116(3) names electronic mail, the SMS service and the MMS service in the same breath, so the condition is the same for all of them.